


Food

by amanda_jolene



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: ED - Freeform, F/M, Gen, food talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amanda_jolene/pseuds/amanda_jolene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because sometimes your relationship with food changes your relationship with the ones you love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Food talk and ED. Please be aware that this story contains both. If you feel triggered by either, I encourage you not to read.

When you’re fat, food is your enemy. 

Not just an enemy, Rae decides. A partner in crime. A side show act that people pay a nickel to see. 

It’s the knowledge that people are watching you when you eat. Watching you stuff food into your already fat fucking face like you’re the grossiest, most fascinating thing on the TV. Rae realizes all of this when she’s 13 and catches a mn staring at her as she chews a mouthful of spaghetti. In a second, she sees what he sees- fat rolls, double chin, another heartattack waiting to happen. She puts down her fork and doesn’t finish her dinner (it will be years before she eats in public again). 

It’s a bad lesson to learn, but Rae find out the the only acceptable way to be fat is to tell others you’re on a diet. Always on a diet even if you never lose a pound. If you can convince them you hate your body as much they do, they the thought of touching your own flesh repulses you, they’ll let your pass because at least you acknowledge that you’re disgusting. 

She’s 14 and at Chloe’s and the thought of eating with her fit, trim family makes her skin crawl. 

"I’m on a diet," Rae tells Chloe’s mum who beams at her as if she has just discovered the cure for AIDS (this is the same woman who has slim 14 year old Chloe on a strict 1000 calorie diet). 

It becomes part of her shame. At 15, Rae can’t eat in front of anyone, not even her mum. She picks and nibbles at dinner and binges on sweets when she’s alone. It’s not the people can’t clearly see she eats (anyone with eyes could take in her girth and guess that). It’s in her fat face and fat stomach and fat things but Rae will be damned if she’ll give anyone the entertainment of feeding the whale. 

At the hospital, she meets Tix who hates to be watched, too. They get trays of food and never eat. Tix excercises the calories off that she might have inhaled and Rae inhales the sweets her mum sneaks her. 

Things get better when she gets hom for a bit. Linda and Karim are never around so Rae is almost on a normal eating schedule. Then she starts dating Finn and it gets bad again. They spend loads of time together and her eating is off but it’s worse because Finn is always suggesting dinner. After the pub, after the cinema, after bowling. She anxious because she has to say no and every time she does, he nose crinkles like he doesn’t get it. If he ever sees her eating, it’s over. Whatever spell he’s under will lift the minute he sees he put something in her fat mouth. 

She’s in a state when he suggests she tell her mum she’s going to Chloe’s for the weekend because he’s got an empty. She wanted to because the thought of Finn Nelson naked all weekend makes her hooha jump for joy and her thighs clench on their own but when she cools down a bit, she realizes it means not just sexy stuff but day-to-day stuff like eating (she also realizes the possibilty of him seeing her naked in a properly lit room but she can only process one crisis at a time). 

"How long have you and Finn being dating, Rae?’ Kester asks at their session the same day. She was in a right state when she brough it up and now she regrets it. 

"About 10 months." 

"10 months and he hasn’t seen you eat? You two don’t go to dinner? He doesn’t ask you to dinner?" 

He did. After every fucking date. Rae’s exuses were plentiful… tired, headache, cramps, horny, let’s meet the gant, let’s go to basement, the pub, yours, mine, the back seat. “He does. I just say no.” 

"10 months and-"

"Look," she snaps. "Chloe hasn’t seen me eat since I was 14 and I haven’t a decent meal with my mum in the same amount of time. Let it go." 

She has a plan for the weekend. Lots of sex and sneaking away. It doesn’t work as well as she hopes because her mum and Karim have taken off, too, so there went any excuse for nipping home. 

She avoids dinner on Friday by showing up late. Breakfast is skipped in favor of back to back blowjobs (Finn promptly passes out after the second) and she lets him finger her under the duvet to get through lunch but by 3 he’s starving. She is, too. 

"Let’s see if the gang wants to go to the chippy?" 

She shrugs, though about saying fuck it and let him see her naked but she’s got a routine down at the chippy. Order something small. Feed some of it to Finn, chuck a bit at Chop, unload the rest on Archie (the boys never understand why they’re so damn full when they leave). She’s half way though her routine, about to throw something at Chop, when Finn catches her hand. He doesn’t say anything, just looses her hand, fries falling back to her plate. 

W-E-N-E-E-D-T-O-T-A-L-K.

Her face is flushed and her skin starts itching. W-H-Y-? But he doesn’t respond. 

"Let’s head out, yeah?" Chop suggests. 

"Nah, we gotta go," Finn answers, grabbing Rae’s hand. He ignores Chop’s jeering and the ride home is silent. He heads to the kitchen, pointing to a chair for Rae to sit in at the kitchen table. He’s back a moment later, plopping a sandwich in front of her. "Eat." 

"I’m not hungry," tumbles out her automatic response. 

"You haven’t eaten at all today. In fact, you never eat, not that i’ve seen." 

Of course Finn Nelson, Mr. Fucking Observant himself would notice something everyone else in the universe was blind to. Rae turns her head from him and stays silent. 

"Why?" is all he can manage. 

"You’re overreacting." 

"Then eat." 

"No." 

"Then there is a problem."

"There’s not." 

"Then just eat the damn sandwich." 

In a fit of anger she picks up the sandwich and takes a bite. She only manages two chews before she realizes he’s looking at her and her eyes well, throat closes. The next thing she’s fully aware of is the bitter taste of stomach acid as she heaves into the toliet. Finn’s crouched behind her, hand holding her hair back. When the heaves turn to sobs, he rests his forehead between her shoulder blades. She tries to explain her feeling but when words fail her, she spreads her arms as if to say Do you finally see? Do you finally get that I’m fat and mental and not good enough for you?

"Talk to me, Rae," he pleads.

"I can’t." 

"You can. It’s me, Rae. It’s just me. You can tell me anything." 

She steps away from him, hands raised to stop him from touching her. “You don’t get it Finn. I’m terrified that one day I’m going to say something… and it’s just going to be too much for you to handle.”

"I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me leave or love you less. Not in a million years," he slowly takes her hand, ready to let go if she jerks back because she looks wounded and hurt and he can feel little fissures start in his heart. He measures his words carefully and find nothing will come out. So he flips he hand over and very slowly traces out what he feels I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U. 

"I’m-" Fat? Mental? "- a mess, Finn. A real one." 

I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U-R-M-E-S-S-Y-P-A-R-T-S-T-O-O.

She tries to shake him off but he doesn’t let go this time. “No, don’t. Don’t pull away from me, Rae. I love you. I love all of you even the parts you don’t.” 

"I’m not good enough for you." They both wince at the words. 

Finn’s mouth opens and closes. He’s floundering. “You’re not serious. You can’t be. You… Rae, all I want is you and I sure as hell don’t deserve you. I have problems, too and you overlook them, don’t you?”

"What problems?" She demands. 

"I’m closed off, for one. Grumpy. I act like an ass to people I don’t know. And I spend 98% of my time writing things on your skin instead of telling you the things that you obviously need to hear. I fucking love you, Rachel. Every bit. There’s nothing about you I don’t want." 

"But…" she shifts under his stare. "I love all those things about you. Even you being grumpy." 

He searches her face, his fingers tracing over palm G-E-T-I-T?

She supposed she was starting to understand. 

He leaves her alone as she washes her face and brushes her teeth. When she gets downstairs, there’s a new sandwich on the table. She stops short. 

"Listen," Finn shruggs his jacket on. "I"m going to nip down to the store and grab some more drinks. Can you throw that away for me?" 

He’s out the door and Rae is bursting around the seams with love. When he gets back, the sandwich is gone and he doesn’t ask if he ate it or threw it away. 

(It will be a few more months before they share a meal. It will be in Kester’s office and she’ll sit between Finn and Kester and cry the entire time. One day, though, Finn will come home and dinner is on the table and they eat together and she won’t cry but he’ll have to slip off to the loo, turn on the faucet and cry himself.)


End file.
